Is a firewall necessary?

computerman · Post by **computerman** » April 29th, 2004, 11:18 pm

I have a Linksys 4 Port Router and I have disabled all software firewalls on all my machines and went to http://www.grc.com and http://www.dslreports.com and scanned. Both sites came up with perfect results (stealth), do i need a firewall. How often are outbound attemps made? I have zone alarm pro, but it slows down all my computers for no apparent reason (100% cpu utilization at times, and it wont let me open files)

Post by **ccb056** » April 29th, 2004, 11:48 pm

What those results tell me is that you have completely locked down your network from inbound intrusion. However, it is possible that you will get a virus and then an outbound connection will be made. I would still recomend using a software firewall if you are not using a virus scanner. If you are using a virus scanner and an Adware remover, then a software firewall may not be necessary to block outbound traffic because your system should be clean.

I would recomend using Norton AV for the antivirus and a combination of Adaware and Spybot to get rid of the adware.